Posts Tagged ‘Hot Rocket’

It’s time to revive the project we called “Covering Cocker” after a long time away from it. So we resume pulling together covers of the ten tracks on the 1969 album that’s long been one of my favorites, Joe Cocker!

When I started digging around on the Intertubes for covers, the vast majority of the songs on the record provided riches: Most had been covered many, many times, often leaving me with difficult decisions (some of which I have still put off). I was, however, concerned about one of the tracks on the album: “That’s Your Business,” written by Cocker and keyboard player Chris Stainton. How many covers of that tune would I find? Would I find any?

Well, I found one, a single by an Australian group called Hot Rocket released on the Festival Label in 1971. There’s not a lot of information out there about the group, a fact that also hampered the writer of the blog Ozzie Music Man during the writing of a post eight years ago. I’ve done some editing, but here’s what the blog reported:

Hot Rocket is a Sydney honky-tonk rock band who only released one single . . . “That’s Your Business.” They are another one of those bands that are hard to find any info about. But who knows? Maybe one day a producer, band member or even the tea lady might stumble over this blog and leave me some more details . . . you never know. The band members were Paul Coates (vocals), Jan Dezwaan (keyboards) Dave Gibbons (vocals & [producer of] this single) Phil Layton (sax, flute) John Swanton (drums) John Taylor & Rod Webster.

In the comments section below that 2009 post, a reader tells Ozzie Music Man that Hot Rocket actually released another single, “Bottle Of Red Wine b/w Rock And Roll Hootchie Koo.” And a few comments down, as the writer anticipated might happen, a member of Hot Rocket – Dave Gibbons – chimes in with some comments about the band’s line-up.

Beyond that, I know nothing about Hot Rocket except that the band’s cover of “That’s Your Business” made it possible for me to cover Joe Cocker! Here’s the single: